


Christmas Orphans

by Lilsi



Category: The Bill (TV)
Genre: M/M, Story around Pet Dog and Cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 22:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11723463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsi/pseuds/Lilsi
Summary: This fanfiction was once posted at Craiggilmore.co.uk a fan site no longer active, so to preserve this story and others, I am importing them to AO3. I did not want the loss of such a large amount of amazing and wonderful fanfiction, it would be such a waste to fans of Craig Gilmore and Luke Ashton to not have the opportunity to enjoy these stories as i have. Since the site is no longer active i have been unable to contact the creators but if you happen to be them under a new pen name and want the fiction to be removed please send me a note!Story Written by - Baxter





	Christmas Orphans

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction was once posted at Craiggilmore.co.uk a fan site no longer active, so to preserve this story and others, I am importing them to AO3. I did not want the loss of such a large amount of amazing and wonderful fanfiction, it would be such a waste to fans of Craig Gilmore and Luke Ashton to not have the opportunity to enjoy these stories as i have. Since the site is no longer active i have been unable to contact the creators but if you happen to be them under a new pen name and want the fiction to be removed please send me a note!
> 
> Story Written by - Baxter

 

#  Christmas Orphans

 

**by B axter**

** Jingle bells, ain’t Pearsons swell, **

** They own Craig and Luke**

** No disrespect is meant with this**

** And the author gets no loot. **

****

** Important notes: None. Oh, except this is set in 2005. **

###  Undeserving

It is July 2005 and a woman is setting out her wares at the car boot sale that is held every second Sunday in the carpark of the Rockman Gardens Shopping Plaza. 

From the back of her Range Rover she unpacks lots of boxes, suitcases of clothes and a small, terribly frightened dog that whimpers as she tugs viciously on its leash. The dog is nearly nine months old and has lived most of its miserable life in a state of continual fear of this horrible woman and her cruel, nasty children.

The children, spoilt and mean spirited like their mother, have failed in just about every aspect of the animal’s care since last Christmas morning. 

“Shut up, you ugly little bastard.” The nasty woman curses quietly with true venom as she half drags the terrified animal from the back of the car. “Just stop yer bloody whingeing and try and look like yer worth owning.” 

She dumps the little dog roughly on the asphalt, hooks its leash to the tow bar, then looks around across the tops of the boxes until she finds the large cardboard sign. It’s on top of a box of magazines, smooth and white, tied at either corner with rough string and scrawled hastily with one word:

#  FREE 

She hangs the sign around the miserable little dog’s neck. 

#  Leaving

Craig is slipping quietly from the strange bed. Although the sun has been up for some time, the blinds are still drawn and the untidy room seems oddly monochromatic.  He discreetly gathers his clothes from the places they were tossed last night and dresses as quickly as he can in the poor light. 

“Want some breakfast?” an insolent, uncaring man asks from the other side of the bed. 

“Breakfast would be nice,” Craig says politely as he fastens his pants.

The man rolls over, wrapping himself more securely in the sheet as he settles against his pillow. 

“There’s some coffee on the counter downstairs, and maybe some bread. Have whatever you want,” he mutters before he sinks back to sleep. 

“Thanks,” Craig whispers. He pulls on his shirt, ties his shoes tight, makes quick use of the bathroom and doesn’t even bother looking in the kitchen before he leaves. 

There’s a bus stop not far from the house but, as he reads the timetable pasted to the shelter, Craig learns the bus only runs on weekdays. So he studies the simple map pasted next to the timetable and sees that the nearest tube is maybe a five minute walk away, just across the road from the Rockman  Gardens Shopping Plaza. 

He sees the colourful activity of the car boot sale just before he sees the unmistakable tube signage. 

The sale only started at 8.30 so there are still lots of bargains to be had; scores of  passionate shoppers are devouring the stock like locusts. Craig wanders amongst them, stranger in a strange land, watching people buy other people’s junk. Someone has just bought a large pyrex mixing bowl, over there a pretty Indian woman in a teal sari is bartering very efficiently for an enamel La Crueset baking dish with no lid and nearby an organised, focused man sorts carefully through a large tool box while his wife is considering a pile of clean, neatly folded tea towels. 

Craig, hands tight in his trouser pockets, is not interested in other people’s junk but is by nature forever alert to details. He takes mental notes about which electrical appliances have safe cords, what china is not chipped and whether the assorted children’s clothing have been washed and ironed. 

It’s the kind of thing that police men and women can do instinctively. 

Craig is busy categorising a box of books near a Range Rover when he is distracted a small woof from just under that vehicle. He crouches down and sees the small, stocky, unloved, peanut butter and marshmallow coloured dog tethered to the tow bar. 

The sign around the animal’s neck makes his heart creak unexpectedly and Craig gently offers his hand to the sad little face. 

The dog carefully moves his tail once to the left, once to the right and then once more back to the left, eyeing the man nervously as he leans towards him. 

“Hello, doggie bach,” Craig says softly. “Why are you free?”

The sharp little ears tilt towards the smooth voice and the wet black cube of a nose reaches for the scent of Craig’s skin. 

The vendor skips over sharply. 

“He’s nine months old and clean. Had all his shots. The ex gave him to the kids and they don’t want him.  There’s nothing wrong with him. I just want him out of the house.”

Craig isn’t sure if she means the dog or the ex. 

“So you’re giving him away?” he asks cautiously as he stands up. 

“Take him,” the vendor says. “He’s got his lead and there’s a dog coat somewhere. And a bowl. If you want him you can take him now.” 

“Is he a Sealyham?” Craig asks. 

“He’s a pain in the arse,” the vendor answers coarsely. “I dunno what he is but he some kind of breed, it says so on his papers. You could maybe sell him if you wanted to.” 

She yanks the leash a little, trying to loosen it from the car. The little dog yelps, people look around and Craig is horrified. 

“Here, let me,” he says quickly, pushing his hands in front of her, and then he finds himself standing there with a half grown dog on a leash. 

The little dog takes two steps towards the nicer person, sits down very slowly, discretely stretching his thick neck to sniff Craig’s trouser leg. 

Craig has just bought a flat in London and has allocated every penny he will earn over the next two years to cover this purchase. The care of a shabby little mutt has not been considered in his budget. When he looks down the dog is very still, just the little tail moving back to the right in one swift movement. 

“You’re a nice dog,” and as Craig says these words dozens of happy scenes sparkle before him - walking his dog in the local park he discovered just a few days ago, coming home not to a quiet empty flat but to a joyful, adoring companion, watching telly late at night with bit of company, being alerted to any suspicious movement at night by a sensible warning bark. 

The scruffy tail flips once more with pitiful hope. Well, it’s awful, living in a house with a pair of spiteful noisy kids and a screaming mother who all hate you. And it’s cold, sleeping out on the concrete step with just an old thin mat to keep you warm. And it’s frustrating, never having any proper exercise.

Craig reaches down and pats the rather square head. The wirey coat is a little softer than it looks. 

“Come on,” he says to the little dog and, in a sharper tone to the vendor, “Have you got that coat and bowl?” 

She quickly trawls through her stuff and finds a large torn carrier bag. Inside is a yellow dog coat still in its plastic wrapper, a sheath of crushed yellow documents and a large bowl that has obviously never been used. 

Craig stops himself thinking about what kind of neglect his frightened little dog has endured. “Thank you,” he says to the vendor with calm and reserve as he gently tugs the leash. “Come on, boyo.” 

“Boyo?” the vendor sneers. “Is that wotcha gonna to call him? ” 

Craig half turns and addresses her with the confidence of a person who has planned on having a messy little square-headed dog for years.

“JPR Williams.”  And he looks down at his new dog as they walk off together. “JPR Williams,” he repeats, but this time to the dog.

When he hears his name for the first time, JP lifts his pace a little, his head erect and his tail high, satisfied with the name, delighted to be walking away with his new master. 

He doesn’t look back.

#  Dumping

Later on that same day, a car slows, but doesn’t stop, just off the main road in Catford. The passenger door opens for a brief second and a petrified young black tomcat is tossed roughly from the car on to a narrow nature strip outside a long terrace of Georgian houses, once grand old homes but now divided into a number of flats. 

The cat bounces along the grass, the razor reflexes and supple skeletal carriage trying to right itself but it lands heavily on its right flank and jars a series of delicate bones and muscles irreparably. 

In a split second he is on it is feet, terror and confusion temporally over riding the pain of the injury and he speeds off through a narrow carriage lane into the back of the old houses, runs and runs, struggling on the pain of the crushed leg, running through a small court yard until he reaches a flat that has been vacant for two weeks.  The cat’s incredibly sharp vision guides it to a low black shadowy entrance which turns out to be an old cellar, the door of which was wrenched loose decades ago. The cemented floor is permanently sodden with rain from thousand of storms; the cat winces at the damp cold on its paws while its brilliant pupils swell to full capacity. 

In the corner it can see a small pile of rotting wooden boxes.

The poor creature drags its injured limb across the dead chilled concrete and near collapses in a panting, terrified heap on the old soft wood. It lays there for alone for nearly two days, starving, disorientated, wretched, licking feebly at the sore swollen mass of its right leg.

Late on the second day the cat looks out in the evening light, limps around the building, mewing once or twice, looking for some kind of comfort. It sees the door to the vacant flat, and wonder of wonders there’s a pet door, inserted by a far more compassionate pet owner a few years ago. 

The cat sneaks around the vacant flat with great suspicion and awkwardness as its injured leg throbs with pain. The previous occupant seems to have left in a hurry for there are still half-empty boxes of food in the kitchen. The famished animal gobbles at left over cereal, stale biscuits and other assorted scraps. 

In the main room there is an old mud coloured couch that sprouts tufts of yellowing foam from random places where the cheap fabric has shattered. But it is warm and soft and the cat curls gratefully into one corner, settling his injured leg as best it can, holding the limb straight so it is jutting straight down from its body. 

The flat will be vacant for six weeks so the cat recovers its strength in the peaceful shelter with gratitude. As the days slip by it gathers its nerve piece by piece, steps outside via the old cat door, venturing carefully, creeping close to ground, to learn its surroundings. Occasionally it will find a scrap of food but mostly it goes hungry; by the time six weeks is up, its spine and ribs are horribly visible knobs through the thin and dull coat.

One the first day of the seventh week the cat wakes in with a start as the front door is unlocked roughly and heavy boots stomp through the house. The cat hides in the shabby garden all day, watching big men with harsh voices in its home. At night when they are gone the cat returns and finds pieces of sandwiches which it scoffs immediately, hardly noticing the odd chemical smells that now hang in each room. 

Every day something is different. On the seventh day the flat is completely clear, the couch has gone, the old rickety cat door has been replaced with a nice new one and the floors are swept clean. The cat sleeps in the corner of the kitchen in a box that held tiles. 

On the eighth day the cat watches from under strong old bush outside and sees a lady escorting a young man around the flat. 

For two days the cat has sole possession of the flat again but the box has gone and it has to sleep on the freshly polished floor. 

On the ninth day the cat hides in the old cellar and listens to the noises in his flat. He can smell the young man again. 

On the tenth day the cat slips through the cat door and sees the young man in the kitchen but the young man doesn’t see the cat who leaves almost as quickly as he came. 

On the twelfth day some unseasonable damp cold drove the cat from the cellar and the scent of cooking bacon wafting from the kitchen anaesthetised the his fear, leading him, desperate, through the cat door. 

Luke and the cat stared at each other, neither guessing that each shared the same indiscriminate longing for a friend. 

“Hello, cat!” Luke said in friendly surprise. The cat took off and hid in the back yard and waited. It was so hungry. 

Luke had no definite feelings for cats at this stage but his mum liked cats and his nan had cats and he knew that in general cats were stylish and low maintenance. 

The cat watched through the bushes as Luke put out a saucer of milk and a plate of bacon and some fried egg. It waited until Luke went inside and then it rushed to the door and ate every last speck of food. It slept happily all day in the camouflage of the garden’s shadows. 

That night there was a little plate of cheap mincemeat near the cat door. 

The next morning there was more milk and some more meat. 

That night there was a small portion of well chopped cooked sausage and some more milk. 

After his fourth good meal, the cat sat near the back door and washed his chops appreciatively. He was starting to feel very positive about the his tenant so slipped through the cat door to get a good look at Luke, who he found  washing up in the kitchen. 

“Hello cat!” Luke said again. “What’s your name?” Which just goes to show how little Luke knew about cats. 

But Luke is kindly and very lonely, so a day or so later he borrowed a cat carrier from his nan, put a plate of food in it and when the black cat took the bait he closed the lid and took it to the vet. 

The vet checked the cat over, announced the cat had been desexed and probably dumped, noted the now healed leg but said it was too late to try and fix the awkward back limb and wrote down some cat foods Luke should buy to fatten the cat up. 

“Is he old?” Luke wondered. 

“Nope, still an adolescent,” the vet answered. 

Luke took his teenage cat home and fed him twice the amount of food the vet recommended. That night the cat slept on Luke’s rug in the lounge room. 

The next day when Luke left for work the cat sat on the windowsill and watched him walking up the side passage as he left for work. Luke waved goodbye. 

That evening the cat was waiting on the windowsill for Luke to come home. Luke tapped on the glass as he passed.

And that night, as Luke settled in to his bed and thought about what might happen now, he felt a soft thump against his leg in the dark, a small movement as the lithe body settled beside his shin. 

Luke smiled. “Make yourself comfy,” he said softly, reaching his hand down to touch the smooth head. “There’s plenty of room.” 

He felt two skilful flat paws kneading gently at his leg and went to sleep to the warm hum of a deep rich purr. 

#  Flying 

JPR Williams has been in residence in Osborne Crescent for three months. He has made great progress. 

Every morning he stands at Craig’s bedroom door and announces the daybreak with two short, well modulated woofs. He has learnt that when he does this he gets fresh water and a small bowl of dog biscuits. Then he stands very still while Craig attaches the leash and leads him through the front door. 

Contrary to his previous owners’ belief, JPR Williams (JP to his nearest and dearest) is a remarkably bright dog. He loves the sound of Craig’s voice and

learns commands very quickly.

Every morning JP and Craig have a quick stroll around the block. It wakes them both up and gives them the opportunity to check everything is okay in their neighbourhood. 

During the day JP guards Craig’s home and swivels his ears to every noise, hoping that is Craig. 

Every night when Craig comes home he sees a comical little shape bouncing wildly behind the frosted glass of his front door, a welcome that gladdens his heart like nothing has for several years.

Then there is a joyful reunion as Master and Dog reaffirm their devotion to each other.  

At night there is a another walk to make sure everything in the neighbourhood is safe before they go to bed. 

JP sleeps in a sturdy, comfortable basket near the laundry. He has two blankets (two!) and a small pillow. 

The weekends, though – oh! The weekends! 

JP had never had a walk in a park, he had never even seen a park. In his orderly dog mind the breadth and fascinating freedoms of the wonderful green expanse are intrinsically linked to Craig. As JP saw it, there were parks to roam only because there was Craig. You could not have one without the other. 

And in the park, the leash comes off. You can smell every tree, investigate every suspect piece of litter, chase every pigeon and squirrel, greet every other dog at your leisure. 

But best of all, as JP discovered, there are frisbees.

On their third weekend together, they had just arrived at their park when JP pulled up sharply, transfixed by the sight of a sharply coloured disc flying high across the grass. He watched with canine amazement as a another dog leapt in the air and caught the frisbee. 

The dog took the frisbee back to his owner, who flung it off into the air again. 

JP watched and barked, congratulating the dog when it once more caught the frisbee mid air, for such hunting and catching skills are much admired by terriers.

Craig was amused and filled with love at his dog’s wonder at the simple toy. “Would you like one of those, Jape?” he asked.  

The question was redundant. When the owner threw the frisbee a third time JP lost all control, speeding off like a fat little train, leaping into the air on those ridiculous stubby legs, beating the other dog by a long shot to the frisbee. Craig rushed up behind him, mortified that his dog had been so discourteous. 

That was just the beginning. 

“Give it to me,” Craig said firmly, trying to pull the frisbee from JP’s  strong jaws. JP would not negotiate. He saw it, he caught it, it was now his. He growled as Craig tried to get it free. The frisbee’s rightful owner – a dopey, flabby tobacco-coloured indeterminate mix of Labrador and Retriever – stood by his owner, who was rather peeved. 

“I am so sorry,” Craig said, but the owner was not a friendly dog owner. He thought JP was a thieving mongrel. 

It took Craig nearly a minute of fearsome wrestling to finally loosen the terrier’s hold. He handed the frisbee back to the owner who accepted gingerly it with reluctant fingertips, mindful of the saliva and deep tooth marks now embedded in the disc. 

“I am so sorry,” Craig said again, while JP jumped around him, trying to get the frisbee back. “I’ll give you the money for a new one, I really don’t know what got in to him.” 

“Don’t bother, “ the hoity owner said rudely. “Just keep the little brute on his leash in future. “ 

Craig was inflamed. “He’s a dog, for Christ’s sake,” he snapped back. 

“He’s a little bully,” the rude man said. “Come on Brandy,” he called to his bewildered dog, who followed him aimlessly after a second or two. 

“Come on, Jape,” Craig said to his own dog who watched mournfully as the frisbee disappeared. “Come on.” 

He snapped the leash on JP’s collar and walked him out of the park, down to the high street and into the local Woolworths. Master and beast stood before a rack of cheap coloured plastic toys while Craig searched for the right thing. He found them next to a display of plastic helicopters that flew if you pulled a little ripcord through their tail. 

“What colour would you like?” Craig said in a low voice. 

# 

#  Working

The Global Children’s Organisation is just off Sloane Street, down the road from Knightsbridge, not too far from Hyde Park, smack bang in the centre of one of the most affluent areas of London.  

It’s October. Luke has been working in the Global Children’s Organisation for two months. He likes his job very much – it’s interesting work and he has the great blessing of working for an organised, efficient supervisor. Her name is Suzanne. She is five foot three, round and delightful with a magnificent bosom and a penchant for droll, precise statements. She makes Luke laugh.

Luke is one of three Sponsorship Co-ordinators who have the serious and sometimes difficult task of keeping people  in touch with the children they sponsor in developing nations.

Every sponsor has a file. In that file is their application form, the results of their police checks, their credit card details and a little information about the child they are sponsoring. 

These files are considered highly confidential. 

Some people choose the child they will sponsor from the website, some people just send in forms and say they want to sponsor anyone. Other people are very specific about the child they will sponsor – it must be a girl over five or a boy under eight or a child with a disability or child with no parents. 

Some people write to their child every week, others never do anything other than approve the annual deduction from their credit cards. 

Each file tells Luke a little about the child and an awful lot about their sponsor. Take Prue, from Chelsea, who sponsors twin girls in Nigeria. She has never written to either of her children. Or there’s Eileen and Miles from Highbury who send curt, lifeless notes to Amar in Zambia on the 5th of every month. Every couple of months they include another photograph of themselves somewhere in their remarkably dull house. Amar sends them a polite response every two months and tells them how the village’s new tractor, which Eileen and Miles helped finance, assists his family’s farming.

Over the last three weeks Luke has familiarised himself with nearly all of the sponsors and sent most of them a brief form letter introducing himself, advising he was now their contact at the Global Children’s Organisation. 

He has seventeen more letters to send out and he’s attending to that now, for

Suzanne has just sorted the morning’s mail and dropped four letters from little boys and girls from different nations, all addressed to clients of Luke, in his in-tray. 

He reads each one carefully, marvelling at the little miracles these children accomplish in the most compelling circumstances every day. One has included a delightful photo of her class standing around a brand new globe of the world, another has drawn a picture of the new goat his family now has. 

Luke signs his form letters to the sponsors one by one and seals the large yellow Global Children’s Organisation envelopes tight. 

The fourth letter is from Canana Cashou who lives ninety miles from Kampala. Canana is seven and has attended the village school, courtesy of his sponsor, for eight months. Canana cannot yet write but the school now has two tins of fine Derwent pencils – courtesy of the sponsor – so Canana has drawn a picture of a chicken, which in his experience is a very important and inspiring subject. 

The Global Children’s Organisation’s representative in Uganda has written a brief note advising the sponsor of Canana’s progress.

Luke pulls Canana’s file and checks the number. 

**140778_05**

Luke types into the top right hand corner of the form letter. 

Then he open the file and looks briefly at the application, skips over the sponsor’s details and then looks at Canana’s details, then goes back to the sponsor’s application and the attached documents. He flicks over to the police check and sees the word APPROVED stamped in large red letters. Just below that Luke sees  a brief endorsement from the District Police Commander of South London and a small list: 

#  Swansea Metropolitan Police, Wales, 1990 –1998

**Manchester District Police,1998-2001**

**Sun Hill Police Station 2001-2003**

**Lewisham Police 2003 -present**

His eyes race across the page, looking for the name of the sponsor and his heart flaps when he reads 

Gilmore, Craig Allan

DOB: 12 May 1970

Male

2/41 Osborne Gardens

LEWISHAM.

# 

# 

#  Regretting                                  

Cats have a healthy respect for social order. Unlike other creatures, though, cats don’t see a complex mix of superiors or inferiors, or a hybrid of pecking orders based on age or wealth or ethnicity. 

Cats believe there are only two tiers in the social structure. It looks like this: 

#                                                        ^^CATS^^

##                                                                     EVERYTHING ELSE

Luke’s cat has adapted very happily to his new life. He is thick and strong, his lustrous coat catches the light like jet and his injured leg, though permanently weak and disfigured, is manageable. When he sits down he looks like any other cat except his right leg extends to the side. It doesn’t bend anymore, and it is too weak to hold his weight for any period of time. He limps slightly. 

He can still leap quite adequately though, so he spends a lot of time on the top of Luke’s tall bookcase. Sometimes he curls up and sleeps there, other times he just sits, overseeing his house and his Luke. 

He is not a playful cat but he is good natured and sweet and always entertained by Luke’s general youthfulness and vitality. In the morning he listens politely to Luke nattering as breakfast is prepared; in the evening he waits for Luke on the windowsill. The beautiful silhouette of his cat against the cream curtain has become one of Luke’s favourite sights. 

The cat likes Luke’s taste in music, his choice of clothes, the way he keeps his flat relatively clean and tidy. 

Luke likes the cat’s reserved nature, his undemanding demeanour and the way he seems so fond of Luke. He also likes his unusual meow, which is not your standard _mew-mew-mew_ or _yow-yow-yow_ , but rather a polite machine gun stutter of syllables like _ack-ack-ack_. 

Luke sees his cat not as a pet but as a flatmate, a companion, a creature with needs and wants not dissimilar to his own. In this spirit Luke often feeds his cat the same food he eats, consults with him with only a half a mocking smile when he is choosing music, talks to his cat about his day after work. 

At night the cat sleeps on the bed, nice and straight, perfectly aligned with Luke’s leg. 

And, like all cats, he’s a good listener. Which is very handy at this moment in early chilly November, because Luke has done something incredibly stupid and needs a calming influence. 

“I can’t believe I sent it,” Luke despairs to his cat again. 

When he first read Craig’s file, Luke closed it very quickly and hid it away in the bottom drawer of his desk. He then set about attending to a whole lot of other important tasks and pretended, contrary to what he felt over the last two years, that Craig had never existed. 

Just before he went home Luke took the file out and read it again. 

He thought of Craig all night, and as soon he got to work he read the file again. Then he signed the form letter with a big, obvious hand, sent it immediately and hid the file again.

 Craig – home owner, dog owner, policeman, bank customer, credit card user, car owner, municipal resident, Amazon customer, ebay bidder, general citizen of the 21st century – gets lots of mail and has grown immune to much of what is sent to him: he didn’t read the form letter and didn’t see who had signed it. He was interested only in Canana’s chicken, which he pinned on the small notice board near his pantry amidst receipts, bills, random recipes and his grocery list. 

“It means his family has eggs and meat,” Craig told JP, who hung on Craig’s every word. 

Luke waited patiently for a response Craig. A phone call maybe, a letter requesting that his file be allocated to another sponsorship co-ordinator - anything really. 

But there was nothing. For a few days Luke pondered Craig frequently and the lack of response gradually made Craig enticing, mysterious, more desirable than ever before.  Slowly, insidiously, Craig overtook his every thought. What would it be like to see him again? Could we be friends? Would he still….could we…maybe I.….

So Luke, never one to leave well enough alone, surrendered to an impish impulse, breaching all the privacy codes of his job and seriously jeopardised his position at the Global Children’s Organisation by writing a note to Craig in which he described himself in the same way a child is described to a new sponsor:

“My name is Luke and I am 27. I have permanent full time work in London and share my flat with my cat, Elvis. If you would like, you can write to me and learn more about my life and the village where I live.” 

Luke wrote this, chuckling gently, on the Global Children’s Organisation’s letterhead and slipped it into card with a zebra on the front. 

Well, it seemed such a cute idea at the time. 

There has been no response for a week. During those seven days Luke has slipped down an anguished slope of emotions starting with wild optimism, on to niggling fear, stopping briefly at fairly concerned before skidding to the lowest point on this clear cold November Saturday morning: he finally realises the complete and utter stupidity of his actions and is aching with deep regret. 

“I’m going to have to tell Suzanne,” Luke moaned to Elvis, who listened with intense sympathy and concern, although it appeared he was half asleep and thinking about food. 

#  Seething                                      

Dogs are pack animals. In every dog pack, there is a leader who oversees all the other dogs. Around that pack there are other creatures, some of whom matter, some of whom do not. 

As far as JPR Williams is concerned, Craig is the leader of his pack. Craig, who brushes his coat, keep the food bowl filled, talks to him in a soft friendly voice, offers firm loving discipline and, joy of joys, tosses the frisbee on weekends, is top dog. JP has only fading dim memories of the other awful house and the other awful pack he once lived amongst. Life is so much better now and filled with many important tasks.  There is their home to protect, a loving and indulgent master to serve and frequent pats to be had. 

Life is so good.

It is said that pets resemble their owners but at first glance the only similarities  between Craig and JP are their gender and nationality, 

However, they are certainly very similar in temperament. Neither has any interest in disorder or bad behaviour. Both are stubborn as mules. Both enjoy their food, like to take exercise and depend on a stable, interesting routine to keep their spirits buoyant and their minds active. Both are rather shy, but given to exuberant high jinks amongst the comfort and safety of those they love and trust.

And both have a humourless, focused devotion to living ethically and being true to themselves. Craig takes his job, his sexuality and his responsibility in the community very seriously. JP holds an identical, rigid faith in his dogness, his devotion to Craig and his responsibility as Craig’s dog.

One of those responsibilities as Craig’s dog is to be with him at every practical moment in case Craig should need his assistance.

It is mid November. JP can sense all is not well. The top dog is has been fuming all morning. 

“I can’t believe this,” Craig says, flinging the card and folded note down on the table. “I can’t believe him.” 

Craig stands up from the table, walks over to the kitchen, leans against the sink and stares out the window down to the back fence. Then he says, “I can’t believe him,” again, and stamps back into the dining room, reads the letter again and tosses it again on to the table. 

He has done this seven times. 

“Who does he think he is?” Craig says loudly. “Can you believe he did this?”

JP follows him back to the sink, his stout little feet tapping neatly on the slate floor. 

# 

#  Informing

Luke’s supervisor,  the wonderful Suzanne, is one of those seemingly anonymous people who actually keep the world spinning smoothly on its tenuous axis, those hardworking, honest people who shoulder huge responsibilities in maintaining and overseeing very large important offices. 

She likes Luke a good deal. He has proved to be very efficient at his job and his contacts in some parts of Africa have been exceptionally handy. Only last week he impressed everybody by managing, without a scrap of drama, to get four large boxes of school books and basic medical supplies on the back of a Medecins Sans Fronteir truck and into a remote area of Nigeria. 

So when Luke tells Suzanne he believes he has made a grievous mistake in his work, she takes him discreetly in to the staff conference room and closes the door. 

They sit at the round table in the conference room with Craig and Canana Cachou’s file between them.

Luke makes his confession.  Suzanne reviews the facts thoroughly to ensure she has all the details. 

“So you used to go out with - whathis face – Craig?” 

Luke shook his head. “I used to work for him.” 

“In the police?” 

Yes. He was my sergeant.” 

“So you weren’t a couple?” 

“Not exactly. No.” 

“Did you have a crush on him?” 

Luke bites his lip. Crush seems like a very thin description of what Luke actually felt. 

“Not a crush…”

“You had the hots for him?” 

Luke shakes his head. “I really liked him.” He can expand no further. 

“Did he like you?” 

Luke bites his lip again. He hears Craig telling him, so long ago, I love you, his voice defeated, his humiliation complete.

Luke nods his head. 

Suzanne thinks for a moment. “So if you liked him and he liked you why aren’t you together?” 

Luke had, to this point, omitted a very salient point. He explained the marriage bit. 

“You liked him and slept with him but got married to a woman?” 

Luke nods.

“And you haven’t seen him in two years?”

“No.”

“And you had no idea he had sponsored one of our children, and it was just a co-incidence you were allocated his file?” 

Luke nods.

“So you wrote him a letter? About the child or his sponsorship?” 

“Not exactly.” 

Suzanne nods sagely and keeps a calm face. “Tell me EXACTLY what you wrote in the letter.” 

Luke tells her. 

“Your cat’s called Elvis?” 

Luke nods, this time with a sheepish little grin.

“Are you an Elvis fan?” Suzanne asks. 

“No. It’s just that he has a cat door, and at first I just called him Cat but one day he was going out through the cat door and I was doing the washing up and I said to him, ‘Elvis has left the building’ and it just sort of stuck.” 

“I see.” Suzanne sits and thinks for a bit. Luke is on tenterhooks. Then she says, 

“Has Craig contacted you since you sent this letter?”

“No.” 

“How long ago did you send it?” 

“Ten days ago.” 

Suzanne has a bit more of a think. It’s a hard one. 

“Well,” she says finally, “Why don’t we just wait for another week or so and see what he does?” 

#  Doing

Craig actually did some thing last Friday, because on the 5th of December, a few days after Luke confessed to Suzanne, a letter with a Lewisham postmark and addressed in a familiar hand landed in his in-tray. 

It was a simple card illustrated with – of all things – a sailing boat, and inside there were just eight words. 

It was deceptive for, despite its simplicity, the small missive represented two and a half weeks of fury, confusion, sadness, frustration and exasperation, desperate feelings all slimy with hope and yearning. 

Craig, too, travelled a wide range of emotions as a result of Luke’s frivolous note. He was plagued by many urges, some more appropriate than others.

His first urge was to find Luke and punch him hard on the nose. 

His second urge was to throw the letter in the bin and to go on as he had tried for two years – as if he had never heard of Luke Ashton.

His third urge reverted back to an explosive act of physical violence. 

Over the next two weeks all kinds of urges would come to Craig. Sometimes his lonely part, the parts that still secretly longed for Luke, would make him want to call him and see if they could start again. Sometimes his aggressive, proud parts wanted to call Luke’s supervisor and complain until Luke was sacked.

Other small relatively unexplored parts of him wanted to rush down to London and grab Luke by the shoulders and kiss him until he was so weak he had no option but to surrender. 

Craig picked up the phone several times, he paced his house, he complained to his enormously sympathetic dog, he would grind his teeth as he slept. 

He wanted so much to believe that Luke had come back but, so acute had his disappointment and heartbreak been last time, he found he could not. 

Mostly he told himself he would ignore the note but it nagged like a mosquito bite. He unfolded and folded it so many times the creases became soft. 

He felt trapped, cornered, tied and gagged. It was through considering this feeling of oppression that Craig was able to identify his problem and, better still, establish an equitable solution. 

“That’s it! I have no power!” he told JP as they came home from their evening walk on the first of December. “He has it all! He does this to me all the time, throws me scraps and then...” Craig releases the leash and JP scampers out to his water bowl. While the room fills with a hearty lapping sound, Craig, now charged and certain, searches through drawers for a something to write on. He finds an old blank greeting card he bought to send to a great uncle a year or so ago but never got around to. Great Uncle Jonnie’s dead now, so it hardly matters.  

The range of colourful emotions Craig has endured culminated in him focussing on the most innocuous aspect of Luke’s note, the only bit he could think about without going a little strange. He wrote quickly, economically, and surveyed his note with great satisfaction. 

“We’ll see who’s got the power,” Craig said to himself with mischievous glee as he sealed the envelope.

Luke opened the card in great fear and read, then re--read, then re-read again the simple inscription. It confused him greatly because all it said was

** Elvis is a stupid name for a cat. **

 

 

 

###  Reclaiming

“I think that’s a bit harsh,” Suzanne said when Luke showed her Craig’s letter. “I’ve heard of stupider names.” 

Luke actually thinks his cat has a perfect name but knows he is no position to argue such a point now. 

“Anyway,” Suzanne continues, “At least you know he isn’t going to make a big thing of it.”

“No,” Luke sighs. 

“You don’t sound very happy.” Suzanne’s phone starts to shrill and she turns back to her desk. “I have to get this.” 

Luke takes his card and goes back to his work station. He reads it one more time and attaches it to the soft pin board above his desk where he’s tacked memos, lists of staff phone numbers and a picture of Elvis on the window sill. 

He stares at the sailing boat for a long time. 

Later that afternoon, Luke is sorting out different files and papers that he will take to the staff meeting the next day. He doesn’t really notice the loud bell that rings and signifies someone is at the front desk. Suzanne was over at the compactus and closest to the door so she went out to attend to the visitor. 

She finds a tall handsome policeman in full uniform leaning slightly against the counter. 

“Can I help you?” 

Craig doesn’t hesitate.  “I want to speak to Luke Ashton.” 

“Is he expecting you?” 

Craig was not expecting that question. “I don’t know,” he says. 

“Well, did you call?” 

“No, I did not. I need to speak with him now, please.” 

Suzanne, who lived in Soweto for three years, is not frightened of policemen. “Whom shall I say is calling?” but she knows damn well who it is.  She peers quite pointedly at the warrant card Craig holds up for her. 

“Sergeant Craig Gilmore from Lewisham Police.” 

Suzanne nods politely. “ Very well. I’ll just check if he’s here. Won’t be a moment.” 

She takes her time, stopping at her own desk before she walks over to Luke’s. She wonders if she should tell him who’s at the front desk. If she tells him, he might not go. If she doesn’t, he might have a heart attack when he sees who’s there. 

The rock and the hard place, she mutters to herself as she walks across the office.

“One of your clients is at the front desk,” she says when she reaches Luke. 

He looks up from his work with amiable indifference.  “Who?”

Suzanne hesitates, her mouth half open, her eyes wide. 

“The one who doesn’t like your cat’s name.” 

Luke pales visibly. “Oh, shit.” 

“He doesn’t seem angry.” 

“What’ll I do?” he panics. 

“Just go and see him,” Suzanne says in her smoothest voice. 

The short walk from his desk to the front counter seem to Luke to be the longest of his life. 

Craig has planned his visit to the Global Children’s Organisation with great care. He knows his note would have confused Luke, and he knows he is in a powerful position. He is savouring this delicious power and admiring at the large tasteful Christmas tree in the foyer when he hears the electronic code being tapped into the door from the other side. 

He takes a deep breath, his indignation and lust for retaliation reaching boiling point, but the moment Luke, frightened and pale, steps through the door it is as if tons of snow have been dumped upon him. Craig feels his fiery power starting to melt into the tenderness and concern he had for Luke two years ago. 

“Hello,” Luke says softly. “Can I help you?” 

Craig can’t speak. He holds up Luke’s letter slightly, then stands up straight, eyes down. The perfectly rehearsed dialogue is forgotten .

Luke waits for several seconds. 

“You wanted to see me?” 

The power comes back to Craig in a flash. Remember who’s in charge here, he tells himself, and he lifts his beautiful eyes to Luke.

“How’s Elvis?” 

Luke smiles nervously. “He’s fine.” 

 “Good.” Craig clears his throat a little and reminds himself why he is here. I need to catch him unawares, keep him on his toes. 

“How are you?” Luke asks very carefully. 

Craig doesn’t appear to hear the question. “The very least you could do is ask me to dinner,” he says smartly. 

“Sorry?” Luke gawks.

“Well, I don’t hear anything from you from two years and when I do, all you tell me is you’ve got a cat called Elvis. I deserve more.” 

“I – no, you do, I know, I just sent it, I thought that it might be, well , I thought..” and Luke continues to flap like this for several seconds. 

“I don’t care WHY you sent it,” Craig interrupts. “What I care about is that you were a complete bastard to me and instead of just popping up out of nowhere and telling me about your bloody cat you should be trying to make up for it by asking me to dinner.” 

“I know,” Luke says instantly. “You’re completely right, I’m sorry, I didn’t even think you would want to” –

Craig, now hitting his stride, cuts him short again. “Of course you DON”T know whether I want to. But that’s neither here or nor there. You have to ask me first.” 

Luke is bamboozled, struggling like a man trying to swim through porridge. He takes a deep breath.

“Would you like to have dinner with me?” 

Craig looks at he letter he is still holding. “I’m not sure,” he says finally. Then he gives Luke his loveliest, most reasonable smile. “Give me your mobile number and I’ll be in touch.” 

Luke has started writing it down before Craig has finished his sentence.  He hands the slip of paper over the counter and Craig  studies the number quite carefully before tucking it into his utility belt. 

“Nice to see you again. I’ll call you soon.” And Craig walks out, leaving Luke with his mouth open, staring after him. 

“How’d it go?” Suzanne asks as soon as Luke gets back in the office. 

He blinks at her, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t know.”

Which, of course, is exactly what Craig had hoped. 

###  Surprising

Luke has to wait several days before he hears from Craig. At first he is in a state of continual anticipation, then after a few days he is a little frantic, but by the time eight days has passed he has lost all hope. 

Luke has just unwrapped his lunch at his desk when he gets a call from an unfamiliar number on his mobile.

“Hello?” he says, holding his sandwich close to his mouth. 

“How’s Elvis?” 

“He’s fine!” Luke face lights up and the sandwich is back in its wrapper. “How are you?” 

“I’m still waiting for you to take me for dinner.” 

Luke starts to flap again. “But I asked you, when I saw you the other day, and you said you’d call...” Craig lets him flap for a few seconds before he cuts him short. 

“I know all this,” he says quickly. “That’s why I’m ringing.” 

“Do you want to have dinner with me?” Luke asks meekly. 

“I think so,” Craig answers. He is smiling very wide, truly enjoying himself. 

“You’re not certain?”

“Not yet.” 

“When do you think you’ll be certain?”

“It’s impossible to say.” 

“Will you tell me when you are certain?” 

Craig smirks. He is having so much fun. “Probably.” 

Luke catches the tiny glimmer of glee in Craig’s last word and starts to wonder if perhaps Craig is teasing him. That notion makes Luke very happy and gives him a small shot of confidence.

“Well,” Luke says calmly, “I want you to call me when you’re certain. I can’t take you to dinner unless you tell that you’ll come with me.” 

Craig is grinning fit to split. “This is true,” he says. 

“So might you tell me soon?” Luke asks. 

“I may well,” Craig answers. “But not now. I’ll call you again soon.”

The line goes dead and Luke wonders once more what happened. 

###  Planning

JP is now a sure, secure dog, a dog who knows he is loved and who therefore conducts himself with grace. He is also irrationally attached to his red frisbee. When he and Craig walk to the park, JP carries his frisbee in his mouth. If any person gets too close, or if, God forbid, another dog might try to investigate the frisbee, JP growls menacingly. 

Only Craig is allowed to touch the frisbee. 

Some of Craig’s and JP’s happiest moments are spent tossing, and retrieving, the frisbee. 

It is December 17th. Luke has been dangling on Craig’s tenterhooks for two weeks and tells his mother the whole woeful story when she pops over for lunch. His mother in sympathetic but, on the whole, far more interested in Elvis, who lounges in her lap while Luke makes risotto. 

In any case, she has some exciting news. She waits until Luke has exhausted the topic of Craig who may or may not accept an invitation for dinner before she tells him she is not hosting the traditional Christmas dinner at her home this year. 

“Len and I are going to Barbados!” 

Luke, while outwardly and genuinely thrilled that his mum and her boyfriend have taken a big step in their relationship, quickly does the maths as he pours more clear stock over the simmering rice. 

Luke’s sister lives in Ohio with her husband and their tow head toddler. 

His brother lives in Glasgow with his wife and two children. He and Luke don’t really get on anyway. 

Nan is already in Ohio.

I have nowhere to go for Christmas. 

# 

#  Annoying

While Luke and his mother eat risotto, Craig and JP continue to strengthen their bond in the park. 

“You are a frisbee star, my love,” Craig tells his over-excited dog when he brings back the frisbee again, holding it up to Craig with great respect, shuddering with the anticipation of Craig tossing it again. 

Craig swings the frisbee as hard as he can and stands, proud as any parent, watching his powerful determined dog chase, and then leap more than six feet in the air, to catch it. It is the retrieval Craig loves best though, the proud little trot, the square head held high, the regal handover and the excitement that, once more, Craig is going to throw it away. 

“You’re a clever boy!” he says to the panting, adoring JP. “Will we do it again?” 

JP dances on his little legs, his body taut, his sharp little brown eyes twinkling through his tatty fringe. 

In between tosses Craig takes photos on his phone. 

He has just caught a particularly good shot of JP mid air when he gets a call from his supervising officer, Inspector White.

JP struts back to his master to present him with the frisbee and watches as the Master talks, at first a bit defensive but gradually annoyed as he seems to concede defeat. JP waits patiently, ever alert to the possibility that Craig might need his help. 

Unfortunately Craig’s present problem is outside the scope of JP’s powers: there has been intrigue at work and Craig’s Christmas plans – or, more precisely, his lack thereof - have all been ruined. 

It makes him so angry he decides to call and torment Luke again. 

###  Accepting

“Well, it looks you’ll be having Christmas Day with me, Elvis,” Luke tells his cat, who is sitting on the window sill in the kitchen, making sure Luke washes up properly.

Luke has thought through the list of mates, the aunties and uncles, the acquaintances from whom he might be able to extract a Christmas invitation. He is certain that most of the people he knows would take him in gladly, but the thought of being the odd one out, the one who doesn’t quite belong, at the table on Christmas Day…well, it’s too much like everyday life for Luke. 

“We’ll have a good time,” Luke tells Elvis who is currently mesmerised by the soft slops of the hot soapy water. “We’ll get some dvds, and some turkey drumsticks – no point in getting a whole turkey if there’s just the two of us, is there ? – and I’ll get some of them mince tarts you like.” It doesn’t seem so bad, now that he thinks about it. It’s only for one day. And anyway, millions of people have Christmas alone every year. 

“We’ll be alright,” Luke assures him as he drains the sink and wipes down the kitchen counter. “We’ll have a great Christmas.” 

Elvis lifts his sleek black head and closes his eyes as Luke rubs exactly the right way just behind his ears.  “We’ll have a great time,” and the more Luke says this, the more possible it seems.

###  Walking

Craig and JP are walking home, ignoring the double takes, the suppressed smirks and the blatant pointing from people who are amused to see a Sealyham terrier carry a frisbee.

Over in Catford, Luke’s mobile is ringing and he can’t remember where he left it. He follows the noise through the kitchen, around the dining room and out to his small lounge room where his finds the little Nokia squealing near the television.

“Hello?”

“How’s Elvis?” asks the deep voice on the other end of the line and Luke’s knees buckle. 

“He’s good! We’ve been the doing the washing up!”

“Well, that’s nice. It’s nice to have things in common.” 

Luke starts to flap again, unsure whether Craig is teasing. 

“About dinner,” Craig says crisply, saving Luke from the middle of a particularly confused sentence about his cat not really doing housework. 

“Yes?” 

“I’ve decided that I would love you to take me dinner,” and Craig pauses for a bit more flapping. 

Luke doesn’t disappoint him and Craig cuts him short after a few seconds.

“There are some conditions, though.” 

The flapping stops quick smart. “What conditions?” Luke asks, worry creeping into his voice. 

“These conditions. First, I’ve just bought a flat and I don’t have much money.” 

“That’s okay, I can pay, it’s the least I can do after, well, you know, it’s absolutely alright because we can go somewhere, you know, look, I’m fine financially and I can” – 

Craig cuts in. 

“It’s not about the money. It’s about being in debt to you. I’m pleased you can afford to take me somewhere expensive and even more pleased you’re willing to pay but if I let you buy me an expensive meal you’ll expect me to put out on the first date and then you might think I’m cheap.” 

Craig expects more flapping but Luke is dumbfounded. 

“What?” 

“I’m not cheap, Luke. I don’t want you ringing all your mates the next day and telling them that I rolled over for a plate of fancy pasta and a bottle of nice plonk.” 

“I’d never do that!” 

“Well, that’s what you say now but it might be a different thing the next day. I’m not willing to take that chance. I don’t want you to think I’m easy. Now, the next thing, I want to go somewhere neutral. I don’t want you having the advantage of home territory.”

“Where’s home territory?” Luke wants to know. “You mean Canley?” 

Craig smirks. “No, I mean anywhere near your present home. For all I know you might try and drug me and then whisk me back to your place and have your evil hormonal way with me.” 

Luke, despite himself, bursts out laughing. 

“You’re a loony!” he says.

And Craig ups the ante. His voice becomes soft and gentle. 

“It’s too soon to do anything else. I just want to go somewhere cheap and nasty and talk a bit.” 

Luke is suitably chastened, as Craig expected, and flaps accordingly.

“No, fine, fine, I understand, but we can still go somewhere, well you know, we don’t have to go – because it’s honestly fine with me Craig, I’m happy to pay for dinner, you can maybe take me out somewhere later, you know, only if you want to, I mean, you don’t have to but if you want it’s – look, let’s not even talk about it now, it doesn’t matter” – 

And Craig cuts the flapping short again. 

“Next Thursday, McBurgers, Piccadilly Square.” 

This time there is no flapping. Craig opens the gate to his house, drops the leash as always and JP runs up the front door, standing expectantly with his frisbee tight in his jaws. 

“You’ve got to be joking,” Luke says eventually. 

 “I’m completely serious,” Craig answers as he unlocks the front door. JP drops the frisbee and runs straight out to his water bowl. “You don’t like McBurgers?” 

“It’s not that I don’t like them,” Luke admits, “it’s just that I don’t eat them very often, you know, it’s the kind of thing you have when you’ve been out all night drinking and there’s no where else open.” 

“How often do you have them?” Craig asks with gravity. 

“Well, once or twice or year.” 

“And when did you last have them?” 

It was just after Easter. Luke, bleak and teary, was on his home from a funeral service and stopped by after he realised the only other option for food was going home to a shared household where he felt uncomfortable, or eating by himself, conspicuously and lonely, in an overpriced restaurant.  The burgers in that overlit place, devoid of any authentic sentiment, seemed a good alternative. 

“April,” Luke says. 

“What did you have?” 

“Same as I always have,” Luke muttered. 

“What?”

He sighs. “Two cheesey burgers, large chips and a hot chokky sundae.” 

“I love the chips,” Craig says. “And I don’t eat there any more than you but when I do it’s a bit of a treat. And at the moment it’s a treat that has been excised by my budget. So the thought of someone taking me somewhere for a treat would be really nice.” 

So McBurgers at Piccadilly on Thursday night it was. 

###  Frying

“They’re having an affair,” Craig says through a mouthful of fries. 

Luke sits opposite, dunking pieces of alleged chicken into a small plastic pot filled with thick rust coloured sauce. Craig has been explaining why his Christmas Day and Boxing Day shifts were assigned to another Sergeant at his station. 

“So the Inspector is having an affair with her and cancelled your shifts and gave them to her?” 

Craig nods as he dips another sheaf of long skinny fries into the rusty sauce. 

“Yep.” 

“Because of the shift penalties?” 

“Well, he said it was so she can take some leave in January, but from what I’ve heard they’ve apparently booked a holiday together to the Maldives.” Craig shakes the scarlet and daffodil coloured chip container and gathers up a few more fries. “I guess the penalties will help pay for her duty free perfume.” 

“But you get to have Christmas off!” Luke says, looking on the bright side. 

Craig curls his lips to a half sneer. “It was going to pay for the paint job in the second room.” He shrugs as he dips some more fries. “Guess it’ll have to wait for Easter.” 

It is an odd date, certainly the oddest Luke has ever had, one of the more odd that Craig has had. The fast food restaurant is noisy, impersonal and not entirely comfortable, yet they are completely anonymous there. Craig was right in his choice; it allowed them a lot of freedom to stay and scarf bad food at their leisure or to leave immediately should it transpire that either decided they’d had enough. 

Their interaction is more complex. One minute they are friendly and candid, next minute teasing and mysterious as they circle one another, tipping the delicate balance between them. Mostly Luke defers to Craig but occasionally he will act coy, answering Craig’s questions with a just a flick of his eyebrows or an ambiguous hand gesture. This in turn causes Craig to chase a little harder and then Luke will once more become compliant, a trifle subservient. 

Secretly they both find their game of cat and mouse very satisfying.  

Luke dunks another piece of the chicken favoured meat. “What colour are you painting the second room?” 

Craig wrinkles his noses playfully. “Oatmeal!”

“That is so gay,” Luke says, but he is smiling as he pops the chicken into his mouth.

“I am very gay,” Craig agrees without any irony. He dips a few more fries. “What about you?”

Luke watches the sauce drip from the chicken piece as he sizes up his answer. 

“I guess,” he says quietly. 

“You seeing anyone?” 

 “I’m  - no, not seeing anyone.” 

“Met anyone special?” Craig asks lightly but Luke won’t engage in the topic. 

“Nup.” 

“You don’t sound very interested in it.” 

“In what?” 

“In relationships. In any of it.” 

“I’m not,” he says, and he dunks the chicken a bit more before he adds, “I’m celibate.” 

Craig grins at first, thinking Luke is joking, but the hunched over shoulders and defiant face indicate quite clearly that Luke is not.

“Serious?”

Luke nods as he dips more of the curiously tasty chicken conglomerate in to the sugary sauce. 

“Why?”

“I’m no good in relationships,” he mumbles. 

Craig is genuinely concerned. “What do you mean?” 

Luke has covered every last millimetre of the chicken lump with sauce. “Dunno,” he says eventually. “Let’s not even talk about it.” 

Craig looks in his chip container, finds it empty and helps himself to Luke’s. 

“Just because you’ve had a little bit of bad luck doesn’t mean that you have to give up. Celibacy’s a bit drastic.” Craig is kind and slightly suggestive, holding Luke’s eyes as he licks salt from his fingers.

“I don’t just have bad luck,” Luke answers, reluctant yet desperately wanting to discuss it. “I have disasters. Every single person I’ve liked has been a disaster. The more I like them, the worse it gets.” 

“I heard about Kerry,” Craig says softly. “But I think you’re being too hard on yourself if you think” –

Luke interrupts. “I didn’t mean her. I mean with other men.”

“Oh.” Craig gathers his thoughts before he answers. “Well, you’re young, not everyone finds perfect happiness first go,” he says eventually. 

Luke, though, is silent. Strange, miserable things simmer just beneath his surface. 

“Want to tell me about it?” 

Luke stops and starts, sentences not quite right, the words not fitting precisely what happened. “I met this bloke a few months ago and we had a bit of a thing and it turned out he was married but he told me he was single and lived alone but he was married with two kids and his wife found out when she answered his mobile one day.” 

Craig’s face is inscrutable. 

“And then I met this other guy who went out with me three times and then he just stopped taking my calls and… well, I dunno what happened. He just hated me. And there was this other guy I met in the pub, just before I got my place where I’m living now and I thought…and then a couple of weeks later I went around to see him and he was with this other guy, and…” Luke shakes his head. “Men hate me,” he says. “I’m just sick of it. I’m just sick of waiting to find out how the next relationship will fuck up.” 

“Not your fault,” Craig says quietly. He wants to say something wise and comforting but nothing comes to mind. 

“I’m just sick of it,” Luke says again, rolling another piece of chicken through the sauce. 

“So you’ve had three bad relationships,” Craig says but Luke corrects him sour and embarrassed. 

“They’re just the ones I’ve told you about.” 

Craig stares deep into the box of fries. “I bet I’ve had more,” he says. 

“Bet you haven’t.” 

So Craig goes through all the really bad relationships he’s been in. He starts with Gerry, a man he adored when he was 21, a true bastard who exploited Craig’s generousity for eleven months. 

“So he dumps me after he I complained that I was sick of sharing him with four – at least I thought it was four, there were probably others – other men, and then two days later he rings up and tells me he lost his wallet and that he had his rent and gas money in there, and could I lend him five hundred pounds?” 

“Did you?” 

“Of course.” Craig talks with crisp, self mocking sarcasm as he finishes off the fries. “I was certain that if I was there for him when he needed me, he’d come back to me. Not that I had that kind of money. I had to borrow about half of it from my parents.” He peers in to the chip box and, satisfied it is empty, starts on the soft peaks of the chokky sundae. “So I gave him the money, lived on bloody toast and cheese for a month while I waited for him to pay me back. I didn’t hear from him for about six weeks. Then I ran into him at a bar down in Swansea we all used to go, he was hanging out with this huge group of friends and one of them asked him about his holiday in Greece. Turns out he used the money to take some bloke to Greece.” 

Luke’s eyes are wide. “Whaddya do? Did you get your money back?”

Craig shrugs, still annoyed at his stupidity. “I told him he could keep it, then I sat around waiting for him to come back to me.” 

“Did he?” 

Craig laughs. “Course not!” 

There are more, some worse, some not so bad but all clear illustrations of Craig’s gentle good nature and the unfailing trust he will offer to someone he really cares about. 

Luke absorbs every detail of every story, using them for private comparisons with his own tragedies. 

“I guess mine aren’t so bad,” he says after Craig tells the tale of Gavin, his lover who just didn’t come home one night, and who, it transpired, moved in with another man in the same building he and Craig lived in. 

“They’re average.” Craig seems completely nonplussed. 

“Why do people do it?” Luke asks, and as he says this he sees the answer so rephrases the question. “Why do we let people treat us like this?” 

Craig is carefully scrapping the thick hardened chocolate sauce from the ridges of the plastic ice cream container. Luke watches him reply while he stares into the cloudy cup and realises Craig worked out the answer to this along time ago.

“The thing is, even when I get mad at myself and pissed off and angry at them, I know that basically that’s what I’m like. If I really like someone I want them to have everything, you know, I want to give them everything I can. I used to wish I could be harder or less gullible but I know now that I’m never going to be.  And I don’t want to be either. I’d rather be like me than like them, you know, have high expectations and give a lot of myself in a relationship. So even if it means that I get hurt a lot, one day I’ll meet someone who appreciates me and it’ll be worth it.” 

Luke looks at the almost pristine ice cream container Craig places on the table before them. 

“Is that why you let me… is that why you were so patient with me?” 

Craig shrugs. “What do you think?” 

Luke doesn’t know what he thinks.

“Anyway,”  Craig adds, looking amongst all the empty burger wrappers in the hard white light. “Until the right man comes along I have JP.”

“JP?” There is an ragged mix of curiousity and alarm in Luke’s voice. 

“JP!” Craig’s face brightens as he fishes for his phone and loads the gallery, holding the screen out for Luke to see. 

“Oh! He’s a dog!” Luke exclaims. “He’s great! What is he? Did you get him from a breeder?” 

“He’s a Sealyham Terrier,” Craig says with unabashed pride, and explains the sad story of the little dog with a sign around his neck.

“People are so cruel,” Luke sighs, and tells Craig about the starving injured Elvis. 

“Isn’t it strange,” says Luke a while later, after he has just fetched them another round of chokky sundaes, “how pets end up with the right people for them? I mean, what are the chances of you being at that car boot sale and finding JP at that time, or Elvis making it into the flat just as I was about to buy it?” 

Craig looks up. “Have you bought it?” 

“Yeah! Didn’t I tell you?” 

For the first time since they first met Craig finds himself treading on a level playing field with Luke. 

“Did you save up?” 

Luke shakes his head and stirs a little viciously at the soft fatty cream and chocolate sauce. “I got a settlement from the Met.” And he sees the look on Craig face, the curiosity and the hankering for an immediate information, so he offers  enough for a feasible explanation. “I got outed at a work function.  A couple of weeks later I had a nervous breakdown. The doctor who treated me advised me to take legal action against the Met for harassment and discrimination.” 

Craig’s eyes fill with a haunting, rare empathy. “What happened?” 

“They settled at the first meeting. They didn’t want the publicity or the trouble and paid me out a couple of years’ wages provided I signed a confidentiality agreement. I was so sick of everything going wrong, so I decided to turn the whole fucking thing around and make it something positive, so I put it all on raising a mortgage, found myself another job and bought a flat!” 

When Luke looks up he sees Craig looking at him in a way he doesn’t recognise, his eyes keen and intense, mouth soft as he holds Luke in  a new and special regard. 

“Are you okay now?”

“I’m fine,” Luke says quickly. “Fine.” 

“Who outed you?” 

Luke shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter now,” is all he will say. “What are you doing for Christmas? 

Best to let it lie, Craig decides as he carefully charts his course through the large soft sludge of ice cream and stiff fudge. “No idea,” he says as between mouthfuls. “My family’s going to my uncle’s place up North.” 

“Are you going?” 

Craig shakes his head. “It’s …well, it’s one of those things in families, you know how it is...” but Luke doesn't. “He doesn’t like gays at all,” Craig explains. “He gets really unpleasant about it, so I don’t go near him and he doesn’t go near me. Mum organised to go there for Christmas this year because I was working. By the time that bastard changed my shift it was too late to make other plans.” Craig starts his careful scrapping of the sides of the ice cream cup. Luke is fascinated; he has never seen anyone collect every last gram of fudge so patiently and so effectively. “So I don’t know if I’m doing anything,” Craig answers. “What about you?” 

Luke tells Craig about his mother and Len and Barbados, his sister in Ohio and his brother in Glasgow.  

“So Elvis and me are going to hang out and watch DVDs.” 

“Sounds good.” 

And then, casually, in a throwaway remark that bounced around the hard noisy white restaurant, disposable and forgettable as the processed salty food, Luke says,

“You should come over on Christmas, if you want. We can watch the Queen together.” 

And Craig says, not looking up, not noticing, a response given without, it appears, any thought, “Yeah, okay. I’ll let you know.” He feels Luke’s eyes on him. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“I’m trying to work out how you can get so much chocolate out of your cup.” 

“It’s all in the angle you hold the spoon,” Craig says with a wink. He leans over and shares his secret scraping technique. 

“Oh, this is good,” Luke says when he has mastered the Gilmore fudge scrape. 

And so they sit there, chatting cheerfully, flirting mildly as they carefully clean up the last veins of chocolate from their cups, their talk cheap and easy, their thoughts in overdrive.   

When they part, they talk awkwardly in the bright garish light of Piccadilly Circus as a bitter wind strikes them repeatedly. Good bye, maybe see you Christmas then, sure, I’ll call you – and just before he leaves Craig bends down quite naturally, takes Luke’s fingers against his own and kisses his mouth quickly, softly. 

“See you then,” he says, his taste lingering on Luke’s lips well into the night. 

#  Assessing

As Christmas crept closer, it occurred to Luke that there was something quite – well, special, he decided, about Craig, but not special in the way he had thought and not that pedestrian kind of special that applies to every one else. This was different, a rare thing, so rare no one else could see it, as if in some way there were tiny, almost invisible details about Craig that made themselves known to only Luke. 

“I don’t what it is,” Luke told Elvis on the 23rd December. It was late in the afternoon, Craig had just called and checked casually if Luke still wanted company this Christmas. Luke replied just as casually that yeah, that’d be fine, come around if you feel like it. What will I bring, Craig wondered. Yourself, Luke said. Craig offered to bring the pudding. Great, Luke said, I’ll do custard. 

  
Craig wondered if JP could come too. Why not? Luke said brightly. Bring him along. He can chill with Elvis. So about twelve, Craig said, sounding distracted. Yeah, great, make it twelve. Luke answered as if he was ordering a pizza. 

“You’ll like him,” Craig promised JP that night as they got ready for their walk. “He’s really nice. But you can’t chase his cat, okay?”  JP held Craig’s special face in his faithful eyes. He had no idea what he was committing to but it made no difference: he’d do anything Craig asked. 

“He’s nice,” Craig said again, watching JP’s funny little wriggle, desperate to get out the door and into the freezing night air, to get their walk underway, to have their wonderful quality time once more. 

As is often the case when JP does something cute, Craig is reminded of the horrible sign they hung around his neck, that something so valuable and precious as a creature offering undying love could be considered free, tossed away to any old creep who was passing by. 

“He’s special,” Luke says again to Elvis, who lays on the small square table where Luke is writing up a list of foodstuffs to buy tomorrow. Elvis extends one elegant paw to the pen, then rests it gently on the web between Luke’s thumb and forefinger. 

“Are you my mate?” Luke says with a smile to his cat as he strokes the sooty chin, and he remembers the first time he saw him, skinny and starving at the back door, choosing Luke for his salvation. 

And then Luke thinks Craig is a bit like Elvis, starving and injured, appearing out of nowhere, waiting for the right person to share his life. 

That night  as he locks up his house and checks that JP is in his basket, Craig thinks of Luke, confused and frightened, certain that no one wants him but hopeful anyhow, his eyes shut tight and arms open wide to the whole world with a sign around his neck that says FREE, and he, Craig, just happened to be there at the right time and the right place and just happened to be the right man. 

** Preparing  **

“Merry Christmas, my friend of friends,” Craig says in a quiet sleepy voice to JP who stands at the bedroom door with his frisbee in his mouth. 

It is exactly one year since JP was taken from his family and placed with the ugly household who did so much damage his tender puppy psyche. The healthy, clever little dog remembers none of this now. He still gets nervous when he sees a broom but he doesn’t quite know why anymore. 

He does know that something good will happen today. Last night he had a warm soapy bath, wallowing in Craig’s full attention while his coat was combed and dried. This morning Craig presents him with a new leash, a kinder and more comfortable version that straps around his strong little chest and doesn’t cause him to gag if he runs ahead. 

When they take their morning constitutional through the magic of Christmas morning, Craig and JP find the new leash much better suited to their needs. 

And the master is in such good spirits. It makes JP excited too; he trots ahead of Craig, his head high, appearing to laugh at a good joke as he pants in the cold air. 

Over in Catford, Elvis has never seen so much activity or sensed such an air of  excitement around his Luke. 

It is exactly one year since the sleepy coal coloured kitten was taken from his family and presented as a gift to a little boy who lived with his shallow parents and their three Dobermans. 

Kitty, as Elvis was known then, found it difficult to adapt to his new home. The dogs were no problem – they were fat and lazy, dumb and placid, far too spoilt and sweet to bother chasing a cat. The little boy was clumsy and careless but not cruel. The father was indifferent but the mother – well, she was a problem, picking up Kitty by the scruff of his neck in her rough way, scaring him so frequently with her ugly thoughtless handling that he took to hiding under furniture to get away from her. 

This made her furious and led to a test of wills, whether or not she could coax Kitty out of his latest hiding place. It came to a head one Sunday morning when she tried to lure him from under the dresser in the loungeroom. Her voice and scent frightened Kitty; on the surface it seemed playful enough but he could hear a rasping streak of malice, a true intention to do him harm. When she saw him, terrified little bundle that he was, hiding from her this morning she snapped,  swore,  got down on her knees and reached under the furniture, grabbed a spiteful handful of him and dragged the petrified yowling animal out. Kitty thought she was going to kill him and in his terror to get away scratched her deeply across the arm. 

Which is why Elvis was sent hurtling across the nature strip only an hour or so later. 

Long ago, far away. Now Elvis  holds court on the top of the book case in a halo of coloured light from the Christmas tree, watching approvingly as his Luke anxiously plumps cushions, takes armfuls of fresh clean towels to the bathroom and makes everything neat. Church bells chime somewhere out in the cold.

When Luke moves into the kitchen the sleek shadow stands up and stretches his flexible spine, nose twitching as his Luke busily gathers the baking dish, fills bowls with nuts and sweets, piles plates on his small kitchen counter. 

The sharp black ears move imperceptibly as Luke tears open a large plastic bag and throws a large red crepe paper tablecloth over the table. 

At 11.30am Luke stops, stands in the centre of his small flat and squints critically at the table. 

It’s not right. There’s something too stuffy about the table, something out of place, too – 

“It’s too formal,” Luke decrees. 

So he starts again, this time concentrating on his large square coffee table. He lays the red paper, arranges the plates, lines up the cutlery, then gathers all his cushions and sorts them in an orderly line around the low table.

  
He surveys the alternative arrangement, finds it modern, relaxed, comfortable, nods to himself and looks up at Elvis, satisfied and certain. 

“Looks great, doesn’t it?” 

But all this activity and thrill has been too much. Elvis has dozed off, his chin resting on the edge of the bookcase, his eyes barely decipherable slits. 

There is a polite rap at the door. 

Here’s Craig, handsome and very well groomed in his good coat and newest scarf, his nicest shirt and best fitting jeans, a large fat pudding wrapped in calico and a carrier bag with two clinking bottles  in one hand, a red leather leash in the other.  At the end of the leash a stout, serious, shiny little dog dressed smartly in a red wool dog coat and holding a matching frisbee in his mouth stands squarely on four short legs, perfectly serious. 

“Hello fella!” Luke greets the stern terrier. “What’s that in your mouth?” And when Luke leans only an inch or two towards him, JP growls. 

“What’s his problem?” he asks Craig. 

“He’s worried you’re going to take his frisbee,” Craig explains as he hands over the pudding and wine. 

“I don’t want his frisbee,” Luke says, a little confused. 

“Well, he doesn’t know that. He’s only got one and he’s very worried about losing it.” 

Luke stands back to allow his guests entry as he holds the pudding up with two hands.

“Did you make this?” 

Craig laughs softly as he passes Luke. He toys for a brief seconds with saying yes, definitely, but something in Luke’s face makes it difficult for him to lie. 

“It’s from Auntie Nettie in Cardiff,” Craig tells him. “She sends us all one every year. But I’m not sure whether we should eat it.” 

Luke looks a little alarmed. “Is she a bad cook?”  

“She’s a great cook.” Craig is looking around the room, at the paint and the fittings, the furniture and the curtains, at the spectacular Christmas coffee table, laid out with great care and welcome, the fat clean cushions lined up like soldiers and ready to accommodate two people. In the corner there is a little green Christmas tree festooned with tiny pinpricks of coloured lights that makes Craig so happy to be there. His eyes travel up the haphazard trail of bright flashes that illuminate a serene, expectant shadow.

“Is that the King?” he asks Luke.

“That’s my Elvis!”

Elvis gazes down benevolently at Craig. He likes tall polite people and leans forward very slightly so Craig might have the pleasure of stroking his head. 

JP looked up too, his frisbee clamped tight in his mouth.

JP has only met one cat - it lived next door to the horrible house he knew as a puppy. He had heard an interesting scratching sound up near the fence and, excitable little pup he was, rushed over and stuck his little snout under the fence, hoping to make a friend. He was rewarded a few seconds with a stinging strike across his nose, a thin razor pain that made him yelp and sent him scuttling in fear. The nasty children laughed and pointed as the scared little pup ran under the stairs and whimpered for his mother. 

Luke and Craig stand still as Elvis looks over the top of the bookcase at the worried dog with a frisbee in his mouth. Elvis contrives a  look of bewilderment that a only creature entirely certain of its superiority can use effectively.

“He looks like he’s smirking,” Craig observes accurately. 

“Well, your dog does look like kind of funny with that thing in his mouth,” Luke says but retracts this when Craig looks at him sharply. “Funny unusual,” Luke says with a reassuring little grin. 

Just as Craig’s about to launch a defence for JP’s dignity, Elvis stretches again and makes his descent from the bookcase to the couch. 

It is the moment that Luke and Craig have each been dreading, the meeting that could ruin their day. Craig winds the leash around his hand while Luke steps slightly closer the couch in case he has to do a mercy snatch. 

But animals are much better than people at creating their own harmonious environments. 

Elvis hops down from the couch and wanders over to JP with a an detached curiousity, sniffing briefly at the frisbee, sniffing at the general dog aura and then takes a few casual steps, as if he is just hanging around, rubbing himself along the side of JP’s trunk as an afterthought. JP drops his frisbee, turns his head carefully, understanding well enough that any quick movement will earn Craig’s wrath but unable to stop himself taking a quick sniff at the cat’s tail. Elvis flinches slightly at the cold wet nose,  walks elegantly back towards that square head and bumps him affectionately once more. 

JP licks Elvis once as he passes. 

“Ahhh!” both men say spontaneously, “Ahhh!” 

“Oh, good boy!” Craig says to his dog who isn’t quite sure what he has done right but is delighted that Craig noticed anyway. 

While hearty praise is heaped on JP, Elvis discretely slides along the side of Craig’s leg in a tender, welcoming blessing and, having set all visitors in the right place of the social tier, makes his way to the kitchen to see what culinary delights Luke has prepared for lunch.

Craig and Luke follow.  

“This is going to be fantastic,” Craig says quite honestly as he helps Luke in the kitchen. They bustle around one another, acting like old friends preparing a feast for thousands. 

JP is hoovering along the floor throughout the flat, checking out all the different scents and ensuring there is no threat to Craig or his hosts. 

Elvis watches from the window sill with a calm, regal pride in his Luke and the two new pets. 

#  Tasting

Luke and Craig eat very well and very long. There is turkey, there are vegetables, there are heated bread rolls and butter and cranberry sauce. There are also potatoes, gravy, ham and carrots, there are bowls of nuts and crystallised ginger and in the kitchen a cheerful gnawing sound as JP makes good use of the very large lamb bone Luke bought especially. 

Elvis dines nearby on slices of turkey and gravy. 

Luke and Craig talk and laugh and eat, fill their glasses over and over, press food on each other,  eat until they feel over-heated and find it difficult to move. 

Out in the kitchen Nettie’s pudding rattles away in a pan of boiling water. 

“It’s full of booze,” Craig warns his host. “More booze than you’ve ever tasted in a pudding.” 

“Really?”

“Really. You might want to start with just a small bit. I know you English don’t hold your booze too well.” 

“Yeah, well, that’s rich, coming from a bloody Welsh soak,” Luke answers crisply.

Craig leans back and rests his hand on his firm stuffed tum. “Them’s fighting words,” he says lazily. “Why did you send me a card with a zebra on it?” 

“I had it handy,” Luke says. 

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Craig says. 

“I know.” 

“Well?” 

“Well what?” 

Craig clicks his lips together sharply and tries another way. 

“I’ve always wondered why people don’t ride zebras,” he says pleasantly. “After all, they’re just striped horses, aren’t they?” 

Luke’s answer is surprisingly passionate. “They’re horrible vicious bastards,” he tells Craig.

“Are they?” 

“Oh, they’re really cranky and mean. You wouldn’t go near one.” 

“Why? What do they do?” 

Without thinking Luke bares his teeth to make an aggressive, and surprisingly accurate, angry zebra face. Craig laughs until he feels the buttons on his shirt are straining.

Luke basks in the quiet satisfaction that comes with a fabulous well received joke. “You don’t want to go near a zebra,” he concludes.

“I won’t be. Why did you write to me?” 

“I just did,” Luke says. “Why did you answer?” 

“Same reason you wrote.” 

“Why?” but Luke can see he is caught in his own trap. 

Craig moves it in another direction. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.” 

“Thought you forgot about me too,” Luke replies, then adds after a second, “Did you?” 

“Sort of. Did you?”

“In a way.” 

And then Craig brings it all to the centre stage. “So you want to be friends or what?” 

“Thought we were friends,” Luke answers as he picks little diamonds of sugar from the crystallised ginger. 

“Do you think there could have been any way that maybe it would have worked for us?” Craig asks him now. 

Luke’s mouth moves but he gets caught a couple of times as he tries to phrase his answer honestly. Craig waits. “I’ve wondered that a lot,” he says eventually. “I don’t know. I think it was too soon for me.” He has completely de-sugared two ginger pieces and half heartedly eats one now. “Do you?” 

“Do I what? Think there was a way for us?”

“Yeah.”

“Hard to tell. You’re so bloody mysterious.” 

Luke laughs gently, a touch of scorn, almost to himself. “So it’s my fault,” he says quietly.

“Yes.” 

“Well, I’m sorry.” 

Craig extends his spine and presses his shoulders back, his chest and belly vulnerable to attack from all angles.

“Will we have pudding?” 

“S’pose. Custard?”

“Did you make some?”

“Yes.”

“Real custard?”

“Yes.”

“With eggs and milk?”

“Mostly.” 

“Not from a packet?”

“They were eggs and milk before Tescos made them into a powder and put them in a packet,” Luke answered. “It wasn’t all my fault.” 

Craig eyes him seriously. “I know.”  

“You should have..” 

“I should have what?”

“I don’t know.” Luke stands up and walks to the kitchen.  “I’ll get the custard.” 

Craig pushes himself from the floor. It seems his belly takes a bit a longer to move with him, so full and tight it is.

“I’ll do the pudding,” he says. 

“I have to tell you something,” Luke says seriously as he stirs the custard. 

Craig is next to him, unwrapping the pudding that looks ready to burst free from it’s cloth binding any second now and doesn’t look up. “What?” 

“I made it from a packet,” Luke confesses as he holds the big white jug that has been keeping warm near the stove.

“You’ve already told me that.” 

“I was worried that you mightn’t have believed me.” 

“I love all custard,” Craig says. “Do your zebra face for me again.”

Once more it comes naturally, is just as entertaining, maybe more so because Luke’s eyes are filled with love and pleasure. 

And when he sees Craig laugh he knows, as Craig does, there is no right or wrong time to love somebody or to wish for them or to hope they might be yours. It may be Christmas, it may be late in the day in a desert, it may be early morning on a Monday on the middle of the motorway. 

Then they realises it isn’t about who has the power or who doesn’t, but the power you share when you love each other.

Craig holds up the plate holding Nettie’s remarkable pudding, surrounded by little triangles of the unwrapped calico, and the rich heady flavours fill the room with the irreplaceable scent of Christmas.

“Looks perfect,” Luke says as he stirs the warm faux custard. 

“It sure does,” Craig smiles back. 

Luke is still holding the custard when Craig slips his hand over his shoulder and kisses him. He concentrates on both for a second but one soon becomes far more important than the other.   

They leave the custard and the pudding unattended on the counter. 

“Your room looks very tidy,” Craig says by way of idle conversation as he lifts Luke’s jumper up of his head. 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Luke lies. “It always looks like this.” 

“You didn’t clean up for me?” 

“No.” And then, when Craig opens his mouth slightly and pushes his face deep into Luke’s warm throat, he says “Yes.” 

A little later, Craig is laying back while Luke kneels before him with the question clear in his eyes. Craig’s eyes are heavy, his mouth half smiling as he lifts one leg and drapes his foot over Luke’s shoulder, leaving no doubt as to what he wants. He says, “I’m the visitor, so you have to do all the hard work.” Luke smiles and Craig adds, “I’ll watch.” 

Then he takes him in where other men may have been before,  but none were ever so welcome. 

A little later still he curls around Luke and they tie their arms and fingers together. Luke appears to doze so Craig tenderly kisses all the places he can reach, the cheek bones, the muscles that fan from the base of his neck, his temples and the curl of his ear. 

When he stops Luke says, “Don’t stop.”

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Craig says. 

“I didn’t want to miss anything.” 

“You think I’m going to say something to you while you’re asleep?” 

Luke yawns. “I was hoping you might.” 

“Okay. Any requests?” 

“Are we friends now?” 

Craig snorts. “We’re lovers now. You have to stop laughing at my dog and listen to me when I complain about work. And I have to eat your packet custard and be nice to your differently-abled cat.” 

“Anything else?” Luke is peaceful and content, eyes half-open, squeezing Craig’s fingers as more kisses land on the side of his face.

“I’m not (kiss) tolerating anymore (kiss)of this celibacy nonsense.(kiss)” 

“Well, that’s easy. Wasn’t that keen on it myself. Anything else?”

Craig’s kisses become more emphatic. 

“I want you to (kiss) stop taking me to cheap restaurants(kiss) and take me somewhere (kiss) NICE (kiss) for a change.” 

Luke laughs softly. “Is that the lot?” 

“For the time being.” (kiss.)

“I’ve really missed you.” 

“I’ve missed you too.” 

And while they think about that sleep takes them both, first Luke and seconds later Craig, as if the sensation could pass through one skin and into another.  

# 

#  Pudding

It dark when the Craig wakes up, hot and damp from the heavy duvet and Luke’s limbs all over him. 

He looks around for the luminous digits of a clock, finds none, looks across to the window but all he can see are small raindrops slipping down the pane. 

The rain grows heavier as he watches; there is quite a downpour when Luke starts to stir a few minutes later. 

“Whassa time?” Luke murmurs with a dry mouth. “I fell asleep.” 

“We both did. Can I use your bathroom?” 

“No.” Luke reaches across him, clicks something near the bed and bright light fills the room. They blink rapidly at one another, a little disbelieving, a little shy. 

Craig runs his fingers lightly over Luke’s face and jaw. “What?” he asks him tenderly. Luke presses his face against Craig’s cheek.

“Was it good for you?” 

Craig’s face is soft and bristly. “You were good for me. You must have been practicing.” 

 “No, but I’ve seen it on movies. Didn’t look hard.” (Luke talks with deliberate false bravado so Craig whispers some complimentary lewd remarks in the attentive pink ear about Luke’s general and specific prowess. This results in red cheeks and delighted pride.)

They hug close and warm. 

“Can I use your bathroom?” Craig asks again. 

Luke makes a cranky zebra face and Craig laughs. “Last door, end of the hall. Make sure you notice my towels,” Luke calls after him. 

Before he gets up, Luke stretches his legs and arms, curls his toes and fingers and squeezes his eyes tight in excited bliss. 

Then he makes his way to the kitchen and is standing staring at the floor, regarding a rather spectacular mess, when he hears Craig calling from the bathroom. 

“Luke!” 

“Yes?”

“I love your towels.” 

“That’s good. Your dog’s got pissed with my cat.” 

Unfortunately Craig doesn’t hear this statement correctly and panics, is still grabbing his jeans into place as he takes hurried clumsy steps to the kitchen. 

“What’d he do?” Craig is grief stricken. He finds Luke standing before a large splattered mess of half-eaten pudding that is curiously enhanced by an upended jug of custard that has spilt all over the front of Luke’s cupboards. Some of the drips seems to have been wiped. 

“I said, your no-good hound dog has got drunk with my cat. What did you think ..” but then Luke realises what Craig thought he heard and he laughs loudly. 

“Oh Christ,” Craig says. “Who did this?” 

Luke points over to the gas heater in the lounge room. 

“I think the main suspects are over there, sleeping it off.” 

Craig steps carefully around the gluey mess and sees JP sprawled out in front of the gas heater. Across him, using the dog’s ribcage as a cushion, rests Elvis.

They are dead to the world. 

Luke and Craig watch the peaceful tableau for several seconds. 

“What do you think happened here?” Craig asks in a familiar, formal voice. 

Luke doesn’t miss a beat. “Well Sarge,” he says sternly, “I think the pudding was resting here” (and he points to counter) “and the custard was situated here” (and he points once more to the counter) “and that the smaller, smarter of the two suspects hopped up here and had a go at the pudding.” 

Craig looks over the counter with a meticulous, well trained eye. 

“You think the smaller suspect – the IC3 – is the ring leader?” 

Luke nods. “You see Sarge, he’s been able to get up here, tug at the opened pudding cloth and then it fell to the floor where the IC1 accomplice was able to have a go at it.” 

“I see,” Craig answers. “But how do you account for this?” And he points to the stream of custard that now coagulates on the cupboard doors. 

“Well, I can’t be certain, but I think the IC3 has used his paw to taste the custard, realised it was only packet stuff, so tipped it out for the IC1 who would have been too thick to taste the difference.” 

“Maybe the IC1 just really likes custard, whether it comes from a packet or is made from scratch,” Craig counters. 

“Maybe,” Luke almost sounds half convinced until he says, “ but I don’t think so.”  

Craig surveys the crime scene carefully. “So you think they’re a team?”

“That’s what the evidence would suggest, Sarge.” 

“And now they’re both drunk.” 

“I’m as shocked as you are, Sarge.”

Craig leans over the counter towards the inebriated animals. “You’re nicked,” he calls out to his dog. 

Neither JP or Elvis stir. 

“We can nick them in the morning,” Luke decides. 

“Fair enough. I’ll help you clean up.” 

#  Ending

 “I’ve read about men like you,” Luke says to Craig out of the blue as they’re washing dishes. 

“What, handsome intelligent Welsh men who make their own custard and are great in bed?”

“No, the domestic god types who cook and clean. There was an article in Cosmopolitan and they said that if you find a bloke who does housework and who likes your cat, you should do everything you can to hold onto him.” 

“Do you read Cosmopolitan often?” Craig asks as he stacks Luke’s plates away. 

“I read my mum’s whenever I visit her.” 

“Your mum reads Cosmopolitan?” 

Luke nods soundly. “That’s how she got Len.” 

“From reading Cosmo?” 

“Yep. He runs the local newsagents.” 

“I’ve read about men like you too,” Craig says. 

Luke says nothing and Craig is quick to reassure him. “You know, the gorgeous young thing who needs a firm loving hand to keep him in check.” 

“I don’t think that article was about me,” Luke smiles. 

“Oh, it was.” 

“What’d it say?” 

Craig folds his teatowel and wraps his arms around Luke’s waist. “It said that it wasn’t your fault.” 

Luke leans his head against Craig’s chest. “You can learn a lot of good stuff from magazines,” he says.

“I’ve got a few days off,” Craig says. “JP thought you might like come to play frisbee with us in the park tomorrow.” 

“Did he?” 

“Sure did. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to though.” 

“He might be too hungover to play frisbee tomorrow.” 

“That’s his problem. He’s going to park whether he feels like it or not. I’ll teach him to make a mess in my friend’s kitchen.” 

“Lover,” Luke corrects. 

Craig draws him closer and squeezes him gently. “Lover,” he agrees. 

“Pity about the pudding,” Luke says. The kitchen is clean and orderly once more, the rain falls steadily outside. 

“Yeah, it is. Pity about the custard too.” Craig tips Luke back slightly and gives him a tender smile. “Still, you’ll get to try it next year.” 

It is the perfect confirmation that requires no further acknowledgment.

Their affectionate gaze is disturbed by a slight noise at the back door. 

“What’s that?” 

Craig straightens up with a small shot of concern. “ Probably the rain. I’ll check it out.”  But Luke follows when he hears a croaky yelp and hears Craig’s deep voice gentle and amused. 

He finds JP half in, half out the cat door and Craig tugging at the stout little trunk. “He’s trying to escape!” he  laughs. 

“He must have followed Elvis! Here, hold him while I get over here.”

Luke carefully half opens the door and while Craig tugs carefully at the lower end of JP, Luke, crouching before the nervous dog, feeds the front end in from the other side.

Meanwhile Elvis wanders back into his flat, cool as a cucumber, rubbing Luke’s bottom as he passes, glancing briefly at JP with a look that confirms he expects nothing better from a non-cat.

Luke carefully threads JP’s strong foreleg back to Craig. “You got him?”

“You bloody drunken fool!” Craig scolds affectionately as JP, wildly relieved, wriggles in Craig’s arms. “Were you following your mate Elvis?” 

“He probably needs to use the little dog’s room,” Luke notes rightly. “There a shared yard out there.” 

“I should take him for a walk,” Craig says. “ I’ve trained him really well and I don’t want to him to get into bad habits.”

Luke rolls his eyes. “You are such a bloody Chief Superintendent.” This statement has Craig beaming for weeks. 

So they wrap up and walk together in the rain, JP not quite up to his usual trot, a little graceless on his feet but madly curious about the new neighbourhood and smells and  sounds of different dogs. 

Luke is wearing a black thick knitted hat which Craig finds very attractive.

“You look cute in your hat,” he tells him as the walk together under a big blue umbrella. 

“I bet you say that to all the boys.” 

“Yeah, but there’s only one boy who I really mean it when I tell him.” 

“Is he nice?” 

“He’s fantastic.” Luke can hear the smile in his voice as the long arm drapes securely around his shoulder. 

When they get home Elvis is waiting by his food bowl. 

“As if,” Luke tells him. “Your not eating for a week, not after the pudding thing.” 

He’s not serious. He gathers some pieces of turkey and ham and fossicks in the cupboard for the dog food he bought in case JP didn’t like his bone. 

Craig feeds both pets while Luke  peers in the cupboards. “You’ve got a funny miaow,” Craig says when Elvis thanks him profusely.  

Luke is looking for a nice late night treat and thinks he might have just the thing. “Want some hot chocolate?” he asks Craig. 

“Is it real hot chocolate or do you make it from a packet?” 

Luke stops still and glares at him. “Are you going to ask that every time I cook something?" 

Craig sucks at his teeth, mouth tight, staring around the room. “Probably.” 

“How else do you make hot chocolate?” Luke is exasperated. “You need bloody cocoa powder and” – he fishes in his cupboard and holds the pack defiantly at Craig – “it comes in a bloody packet!” 

“Do you have any plain milk chocolate?” 

“Don’t know.” Which is a lie, because Luke knows for certain that there is a block of Cadbury’s in the fridge. 

“Go and put your jarmies on and I’ll bring it up for you. No, bugger off, Mr Packet food,  wait for me in bed. I’ll make it.”

 Luke is standing at the window, his arms holding a cotton blanket around him when he hears Craig walking up the hall. 

“It’s real,” Craig says when he hands him the steaming mug. Luke sips nervously, tastes, raises his eyebrows and nods. 

“It’s good,” he smiles. “Look outside.” 

And Craig sees thousands of little flakes tossing around in the deep dark Christmas night. “It’s snowing!” 

They rest their mugs on the windowsill and Craig  stands behind Luke, holding him close and rocking him very slightly as they watch last minutes of Christmas slip past, having wound right around the world, over the Pacific, bringing good times and bad times, anticipated for weeks or slipping by unnoticed, through heat and storms and ice. They each think for a moment of their families, Craig’s mean uncle, Luke’s sunburnt mother, Nan in Ohio. Then they think of friends and colleagues -  Suzanne in Liverpool, the adulterous Sergeant who had an awful fight with her inspector today and left three teary messages for Craig, pleading to swap shifts with him tomorrow. (And of course, even if he got the messages, he certainly wouldn’t comply.) 

“You know I’ve got the next three days off,” Craig says. 

“I’ve got two weeks off,” Like replies. 

“It’s not a competition. I just wanted you to know that I’ll be around.” 

“Be around? AROUND? We’re lovers now.” Luke lifts his face and views Craig at an awkward angle. “You ain’t going nowhere, sister.” He says this in a clumsy American accent and Craig squeezes him a little tighter. 

The romance is interrupted by a soft thud on the floor. They turn to see Elvis already on the bed, watching with mild distaste as JP tries to hop up too. It takes him three attempts. When he finally makes it, he plonks down adjacent to Elvis, wagging his shaggy little tail, smiling up hopefully at Craig. 

The tail is bothersome to Elvis, and he extends one graceful paw, holding it down until it is still. 

“Told you he was smarter.” Luke says. 

“JP was finished wagging his tail,” Craig answers. “it looks like we’re all bunking in together.” 

Luke nods. “It can be challenging, managing a family,” he tells Craig. 

“A family”,  Craig repeats, and he rocks Luke a little harder. 

They turn back to the window, watching the snow, thinking about their new family. We’ll have to make the cat door bigger, Luke decides. I’ll do the cooking, Craig decides. 

Luke leans over for their hot chocolate, hands the red mug to Craig. “Watcha thinking?” he asks  

Craig has a sip. “Nothing special. Just how great my Christmas was. What about you?” 

“Oh, same stuff,” Luke says casually. “Christmas wish comes true kind of stuff.”

 The snow falls hard and fast now, like every fairy tale ever read. It reminds Luke of something important. 

“I almost forgot! Merry Christmas!” 

“Merry Christmas to you too, lover.”

Luke wants the last word. “May all your dreams come true.” 

Craig gently clunks his mug against Luke’s. “They already have,” he whispers. 

 

 

**[Christmas Index](http://web.archive.org/web/20070124162848/http:/www.craiggilmore.co.uk:80/Christmas/ChristmasIndex.htm)**

 


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